


professional courtesy

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Suits (TV), White Collar
Genre: Con Artists, Gen, Gen or Slash, M/M, POV Outsider, observation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3420323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this prompt at comment-fic on lj:<br/>Suits/White Collar, Mike Ross + or / Harvey Specter + Mozzie, Mozzie's POV of Harvey and Mike</p>
            </blockquote>





	professional courtesy

They're suits too, these lawyers. All they do is protect the oppressors from losing any of their ill-gotten gains. Their clothes are nicer, each tailored suit worth thousands, and Mozzie thinks that makes them even more worthy of disdain than the Fed suits (he knows that Neal would like their clothes, but what can one do about Neal... but of course Neal borrows or steals his clothes, which is far more honest than what Pearson Specter does).

He watches them closely, these lawyers who are representing the corporation trying to take down one of Mozzie's old friends. He sees Harvey Specter, apparently a legend among lawyers, and he's not impressed. He's smart, sure, almost as good at a fast read as Neal, but he has a big ego and Mozzie knows a thousand ways to turn that into a weakness.

The junior suit, the Harvey in training, seems the same at first. Smart - really, really smart, a memory like Mozzie's - plus ego. He follows Harvey around, learning to be more and more proud of his role as corporate servant, just like Harvey.

Mozzie doesn't realize until a week into watching them that Mike is a con.

Not in the way that all lawyers can bluff and confuse and con. Mike is like Neal and Mozzie.

Mike isn't a lawyer at all.

But he wants to be. And though Mozzie finds himself suddenly respecting the brilliance of Mike's con, he can also see that Mike desperately wishes the con were true.

It's a tragic thing, when a smart young man falls prey to his own con, when he refuses to leave with his winnings because he's desperate, because he thinks if he waits long enough then the lie will become real. That the people you've fooled will still care about you when they realize that the 'you' is just a made up story, that the life you've built is solid, that it won't fall out from under your feet.

Mozzie's seen it too many times.

He continues to watch, to gather evidence that might help his friend. He doesn't want to have to expose Mike to win the case. Cons and thieves should protect their own.

Another week passes before Mozzie realizes: _Harvey_ knows.

Mozzie almost laughs when he figures it out. The great Harvey Specter, the symbol of cutthroat lawyers and big deal firms, has decided that if a con artist wants his fake law career to be real, then that's okay with him. Mozzie thinks that, in a roundabout way, Mike maybe got what he wanted after all.

Of course, Mozzie would do anything for a friend. But Harvey and Mike, working together, almost always win. And yet, it would be such a shame to take them down....

It turns out, it's easy to make one of Pearson Specter's biggest clients switch law firms. All it takes is a few staged photos that give a rather false impression that the firm is meeting with their competitors (which El might have helped with, just a little. Such a shame she prefers an honest profession.)

And of course with Harvey and Mike off the case, and Mozzie still on it, victory is a near certainty.

Mozzie still doesn't like Harvey, with his silly machismo and corporate lackey behavior and his love of organized sports. But if he can risk everything for a con artist, then maybe he's not such a brainwashed minion after all.


End file.
